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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25474747">Blood of the Covenant</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dredfulhapiness/pseuds/Dredfulhapiness'>Dredfulhapiness</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Character Study, Gen, i guess? Not too sure abt that last one</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 12:02:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,996</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25474747</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dredfulhapiness/pseuds/Dredfulhapiness</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Every time Rhodey wanted to be angry he thought about how long he’d spent thinking Tony must be dead. The emptiness in his chest, like he was missing ribs and the structure of his whole being had been compromised.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James "Rhodey" Rhodes &amp; Tony Stark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Blood of the Covenant</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostintranslaation/gifts">lostintranslaation</a>.</li>


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24333187">I guess that's better than a grave and a hearse</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostintranslaation/pseuds/lostintranslaation">lostintranslaation</a>.
        </li>

    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>The lovely wearelostintranslation wrote the inspirational fic where Tony had to help a drunk, grieving Peter and she wrote the line “is this how Rhodey felt?” And I couldn’t stop thinking about it. So.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>When Howard Stark died, Tony celebrated with two bottles of Jack and a baseball bat to his workshop. He made shards of the things he’d created, took them apart until the wood of the bat splintered and he was left standing in carnage. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When Rhodey found him, Tony had already moved on to mourning Maria: a bottle of cognac he gripped by the throat, the other hand plucking notes from the piano like drawing teeth. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Guess what!” Tony lauded when his eye caught on Rhodes. He spread his arms, as if basking in glory. There were bruises on his knuckles, a few cuts spread across his cheeks. “I’m an orphan!” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You’re a little old to be an orphan,” Rhodes said, because he abhorred pitying Tony as much as Tony abhorred being pitied. “How much have you had?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Not,” Tony said, the word punctuated by wobbly finger guns, “Enough. Let me pour you a glass-- actually? Fuck, let’s get you a bottle. No one else is gonna drink it.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He wandered away in the middle of talking, his back to Rhodey. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t want a drink,” Rhodes said, already falling into step behind Tony. His balance was non-existent. Rhodey put a hand out to steady him as he serpentined his way across the living room. All of the photos on the mantle were downturned. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The Starks’s liquor cabinet was something to marvel at. Bottles of alcohol worth more than Rhodey’s college tuition. Mostly whiskey, a couple shelves dedicated to Maria’s wine collection. It twisted Rhodey’s chest to look at. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Sure ya do, hun. Take your pick. We’ve got…” Tony trailed off in the middle of his sentence. As if seeing the hutch for the first time, his jaw went slack. His arms fell, lax, at his side. He swallowed loudly. “We’ve got it all.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Tony,” Rhodey said carefully. Tony shook his head, came back to himself. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He was once again standing in the storm of his grief, a black hole. Phasers set to devour. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You like bourbon, right? Of course you do, who doesn’t like bourbon--” He reached forward, and Rhodey took his wrist. He wrestled the bottle from his hand, pried it from his fingers. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t want a drink,” Rhodey said again, even as Tony tried to hold on. Thankfully, the bottle didn’t shatter when it hit the ground. Rhodey pulled Tony into a hug. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He ignored how Tony tried to push him away, slurred some complaints into the bone of Rhodey’s shoulder. And then he went limp, someone soft and pliable in Rhodey’s arms, hands clinging to the bottom of Rhodey’s jacket like a child. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I know,” Rhodey mumbled as the struggle eased. He held Tony tighter, and eventually Tony’s arms wrapped around him, too, a scrambling hug. Desperate. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I own the company now,” Tony said between hiccups. Rhodey ran a hand down the divots of his spine. “I don’t know how to own a company.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We can worry about that tomorrow,” Rhodey said. He settled his other hand on the back of Tony’s head. He reeked of alcohol. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Why are you here?” Tony asked.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I saw the news,” Rhodey said. “Figured you shouldn’t be alone.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I am,” Tony said. “She’s gone.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Rhodey shook his head. “You got me,” he promised. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They stayed like that for a while, cognac pooling under their feet. A few floors up, Dum-e was fumbling around the tattered workspace, carefully picking up pieces of dented metal and shattered displays. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tony would find it stacked into piles the next morning, sunlight prism-ing onto the walls. It would look like artwork. Heartbreak reborn into a memorial. Hungover and grieving, he’d kick it apart, killing the ouroboros.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>That night, Rhodey put Tony to bed, helped him stumble onto the elevator and into the first bedroom Rhodey found. He put a trashcan next to the bed, a bottle of aspirin on the table with a glass of water. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“If you don’t stay in bed, I’ll hold you down until you fall asleep,” Rhodey warned when Tony tried to sit up. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It didn’t take long for him to drift off. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Rhodey found himself another random room to sleep in. He was there when Tony woke up. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They pretended the night before hadn’t happened, even as they cleaned the living room up together. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tony wasn’t the same after The Cave. He slept less, picked fights more, drank to excess. Rhodey woke, more often than not, to a missed call from Pepper. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Or Tony. Voicemails that sounded like he had marbles in his mouth. Telling him to ignore whatever Pepper said he was </span>
  <em>
    <span>fine </span>
  </em>
  <span>and did Rhodey remember the name of that guy from MIT who sold speed.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Every time Rhodey wanted to be angry he thought about how long he’d spent thinking Tony must be dead. The emptiness in his chest, like he was missing ribs and the structure of his whole being had been compromised. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>So he picked Tony up off the bathroom floor. He put an arm around Pepper’s shoulder and let her lean on him even when he felt close to collapse. He left pamphlets out. Places where Tony could get help. He left melatonin in the lab and told Jarvis to remind Tony to take it. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He risked his own career. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He went to court with Tony. He vouched for him, over and over, and told him that he wanted his own suit. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>(Mostly because he </span>
  <em>
    <span>did.</span>
  </em>
  <span> The suit was cool, and he had the skill to wear one. And maybe if he had one, too, some of the weight would slide off of Tony’s shoulders. Maybe he wouldn’t be alone, some self-proclaimed protector.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But even Rhodey had his limits. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tony may strive to do good, but no good can be done while spiraling. The Tony at that party wasn’t the same as the Tony he’d gone to college with. The Tony refusing help like he was getting paid for it wasn’t the man he’d eaten countless pizzas with studying for tests they both knew Tony would ace. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The man taking himself apart piece by gruesome piece was not the one who had spent his youth painstakingly putting things together. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Rhodey took the suit. Tony didn’t stop him. Neither of them could decide whether or not it had been a betrayal. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When Tony earned his one year chip from Alcoholics Anonymous, Rhodes was the first person he called.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Rhodey left a meeting early to take the call. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Rhodey knew he was the main reason Tony kept a level head after Steve and the others were locked up on The Raft. His recovery gave him something to focus on, a tangible goal. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He’d traded alcohol for coffee, obsessions over the suit for studying the function of leg braces. He learned the inside-outs of human anatomy, reconstructed shattered models of spines and then broke them again. Assembling tragedy from the ground up in search of a solution.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When the pilot was grounded, Tony tried to piece him back together. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He went to appointments with Rhodes, and if the doctors tried to say anything, Tony told them he was his husband. Snapped it, like he was sick of saying it. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Do you want to see our fucking marriage certificate?” and Rhodes would nod, </span>
  <em>
    <span>just let him hear whatever you wanna tell me, </span>
  </em>
  <span>because if Tony’s new vice was caring too much they could both live with that.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He oversaw Rhodey’s physical therapy, goaded him from the other end of the walkway. He abhorred the fact that he pitied Rhodes in the way Rhodes had respectfully never pitied him. He drank coffee by the pot and tried to will whiskey into it. He built suits to accommodate the misfortune he’d helped wrought. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was all an apology. Guilt thrust outwards rather than inwards. A super nova instead of a black hole. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tony showed affection by becoming an expert on you overnight, and he showed remorse the same way. Solution-oriented, like the world’s shittiest motivational speaker. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Rhodey wasn’t sure what to expect when Tony came back from Titan empty-handed. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He was sure it would turn out either self destructive or overtly productive, but when Tony told Steve </span>
  <em>
    <span>we lost the kid </span>
  </em>
  <span>it was defeat Rhodey heard in his voice. It was empty. Like something on the ship had poured out the spirit of Tony Stark and used it as fuel. Like it was burnt up in the galaxy somewhere, particles that would never quite disappear but that would never come back to him, either.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He spent the first few days laying in a room that smelled sterile. He was hooked to machines like soulmates, wires overlapping on his chest in a web. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He was uncharacteristically quiet, refused to talk about space. He would ask Pepper about wedding plans. He’d bring up stories from college to tease Rhodey with. He melded the future and past so he wouldn’t have to focus on the present.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Nebula had told them a decent amount, and the videos he’d left on his helmet said more. There was one for all of them, silent pleas to the universe that they would be alive to watch them. Just looking at them made Rhodey feel cold, like space had reached through and wrapped around him, too. A void with no container. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He felt, again, the ache of missing a vital part of himself. He hadn’t let himself feel it while they searched, but the videos brought it up like bile. Tony was two rooms away, alive and… Well. It still twisted around Rhodey’s head like a crown of thorns. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He kept waiting for the moment the other shoe would drop. For Tony to get his strength back and start spending all of his time in the garage to come up with a cure-all fix. For Tony to pick up a bottle. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It didn’t come. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He asked Rhodey to be his best man and warned him that it would only be Happy and Natasha sitting on his side of the reception. He kept a picture of Peter on a shelf and he didn’t spend his free time taking it down to contemplate. He had Morgan and he painted the nursery. Put the crib together, and told Rhodey he was her godfather whether he wanted to be or not. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He got better at remembering birthdays. Rhodey found a card in his mailbox two days early.</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Rhodes wasn’t surprised when Tony called him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Steve stopped by today,” He said, and with just a sentence Rhodey knew that Tony’s resolve had crumbled. “They want me to invent time travel.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>What was Rhodey supposed to say? </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Dry mouthed, “Let’s do it, then.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They shared a bottle from opposite ends of the couch. Their faces were red from a combination of the wine and laughter.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m telling you, he almost got kicked out for streaking,” Rhodey emphasized, and Pepper hurriedly covered her mouth with her palm. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“How have I never heard that story?” She stage-whispered. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know-- it was his proudest achievement back then. Convinced, like, ten guys to join him.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Fuck,” Pepper breathed. She handed the bottle back to Rhodes. “God-- we’re gonna wake Morgan.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Her breath came out as a stutter. She ran her thumb under her eyes. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“So what happened?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Rhodey swallowed a mouthful of wine. It was sweet. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Sorority retaliated,” He said. “Just like Tony planned.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m so glad I didn’t know him in college,” Pepper said. “I don’t think I could have handled it.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He couldn’t have handled </span>
  <em>
    <span>you,” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Rhodey corrected. “He’d be afraid of you. Also obsessed with you.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“So nothing would be different?” Pepper sighed. She dropped her head onto the back of the couch. “What am I gonna do without him?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Worry about that tomorrow.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Rhodes handed the bottle back. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You’re his favorite person, you know,” Pepper said. “He’d do anything for you.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Rhodey hummed. “And I’ve done everything for him.” He didn’t say it unkindly. He couldn’t. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I know.” She smiled at him, soft and hurt and loving. “Thank you.” </span>
</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I posted this from my phone and boy... that was weirdly difficult. Anyway, I’ve been working on a bigger fic about Rhodey, so I wanted to write this as a warmup. Their relationship makes me 🥺🥺😭😭. Again, thank you to Aly and I suggest checking out her Fics because she’s amazing.</p><p>Feel free to come talk to me on tumblr @dredfulhapiness my asks are always open!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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